I know how the engine in a P51 works because it is piston driven, but how does the radial engine work on F4u

Question

P51 Mustang engine is piston driven, but the engine on the F4U Coursair is Radial, how does that work?

Answer 1

Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_engi...

BTW the F4U was an excellent aircraft.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F4U_Corsair

Answer 2

Radial engines have pistons too, with a crank in the center.  Were you thinking of the Rotary engine?

Answer 3

Radial refers to the cylinder configuration / arrangement (other configurations: in-line, horizontally opposed, etc.)

Still piston-powered.

Answer 4

Here's a cut-away of a Radial Engine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_engi...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/radial-...

http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/...

Answer 5

The radial engine works much like a "V" or inline piston engine.They are all piston driven, however the Radial allowws many cylinders in a short horizontal space. The negine on the P*51(Rolls Royce Merlin) is almost 8 feet long whereas the Curtis(I think)  on the F4 is less than 5 feet long. Simply a matter of design and engineering.

Answer 6

They are very interesting. As the pistons rotate  around the crankshaft.

Hard to explain, maybe the history channel has some video on it (that was how I found out).

Answer 7

As the others above have said a radial engine works on the same principal as an horizontally opposed on inline-v engine.  The only difference is the construction on the connecting rod assembly and that it has no camshaft to open and close the valves.

Being as the cylinders in a radial engine are arranged in a circle around the crankshaft all of the pistons are connected at the same point.  This assembly of connecting rods has one ridged master rod and the rest articulated rods.

http://www.century-of-flight.net/new%20s...

The master rod is similar to other connecting rods except that it is constructed to provide for the attachment of the articulating rods.  The articulating rods are hinged to the master rod and provided the necessary force to rotate the engine crankshaft.  As the piston moves up and down in the cylinder during the combustion cycle the connecting rod being hinged at both the top and the bottom pivots to push the piston up on the compression and exhaust strokes and push the piston down on the intake and power strokes.

As for the lack of the camshaft radial engines have what is known as a cam plate that can be geared to rotate either in the same direction or the opposite direction of the crankshaft and works with the same principals as a camshaft.  As it rotates lobs on the plate push up on lifter rods that in turn lift the rear end of the valve tappet which in turns pushed down on the valve opening it

Answer 8

A radial engine is also a piston engine.  Each cylinder cycles through the same 4-stroke cycle as the cylinders of an in-line engine like the Merlin.

The difference is in the arrangement of the crank and connecting rods.  It's a lot easier to understand with pictures and diagrams.  Just do an internet search on "radial engine" to see it all.

Answer 9

it's kinda hard to explain..... just go here:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/rotary-eng...

btw i added this incase you were indeed looking for a pistonless engine (i.e. rotary engine) and how they worked.

Answer 10

Some good answers, but most are confused about the rotary engine. The aircraft rotary engine was made long before the Wankel car engine. Read the article on the rotary here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engi...